I woke up to the sound of someone’s footsteps. It got louder before it went softer as the person walked towards the other direction from where he previously came from. I was going to fake being asleep but it wasn’t necessary in the end. I open my eyes and found myself lying on a soft bed. The bedsheet was pure white and the bed was soft yet firm. It laid on a sturdy wooden frame that was near the middle of the small room. There was a wooden chair placed beside the bed, which was a step away from the wide open windows. A girl was sitting there, sleeping soundly. The other side of the room had nothing blocking myself from the wooden door which I heard the footstep from previously.

I found myself in a dilemma as I didn’t know where I was and the reason for being there. I also had a splitting headache and my whole body felt weak. I knew that I had forgotten important things but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were. I tried to sit up on my bed but my arms wasn’t able to support my weight so I fell back down. The noise of my attempt to sit up woke up the girl in the chair.

She was a slender girl that looks to be in her teens. Her skintone was fair and she had straight hair that barely reached her shoulders. Her black eyes were a contrast to the blond hair that she had, and using that pair of eyes that looks surprised, she stares at me. Her mouth opened but no words came out, or at least that was supposed to have happened.

“Eh? He's awake! I need to inform brother, erm, the bell!”

I knew that there was no voice that came out from her mouth but I could somehow ‘hear’ her. And only after ‘hearing’ what she said did I noticed the small coffee table beside her chair. There was an ornate bell sitting on top of it, which she picked up and rang. The sound of the bell ringing reminds me of alarm bells which warn me of danger, but the threat of this girl here seemed improbable. I laid there looking at the girl as I waited for whoever the bell was calling to arrive.

A similar footstep to the one I heard from before sounded. It was much heavier and faster, almost seeming urgent. The owner of the footstep soon opened the door to the room wide open and stepped in.

“He’s awake!”

I heard her voice within my head again as she stood up and pointed towards me. I could only turn my head to look at the new arrival. His had similar features as the girl, but looked older and more masculine. The significant differences was that he looked a lot stronger than the frail girl with his well-trained muscles that he had and was taller than her too. He had no facial hair and had medium length hair that reached slightly below his ears. It also had golden blond hair like the girl that was in the room, which seemed to be his sister from the voice I heard from her. He looked at his sister with panic but after confirming that nothing was wrong with her, his face turned expressionless.

He looked at me with disinterest before proceeding to turn around, intending to leave the room. The girl quickly went to stop him by standing between him and the door before pouting. I could feel that he had turned panicky again and he spoke.

“Eh!? Ok, don’t be angry, I’ll take care of him. What do you want me to do?”

The girl’s attitude changed like a storm and was all smiles again as she tried to describe what she wanted him to do with body actions.

“You can help him sit up and feed him food! Also, perhaps you could change him out of his clothes and wipe him down. They seemed stuffy. I’ll go and cook our dinner now.”

I figured that they aren’t bad people and I should trust them. I should also not give them much more trouble that I already did.

“Erm, thank you. I think I can wipe myself down. I shouldn’t trouble you more than I already did.”

They turned to my unexpected voice in surprise and the brother asked.

“How did you know what she was saying?”

The reason he asked that was simple. Her actions differs totally from what she was thinking. It simply made no sense to anyone other than perhaps her brother. Or it could be some sort of sign knowledge that I have never seen before.

“I could somehow ‘hear’ her in my head. I don’t know how but I do.”

“You can hear me!?”

“Yes I can?”

“Amazing! No one could understand me other than my brother for the past few years, now someone can hear me and understand what I’m saying!”

“Er...Okay?”

I could only reply with that to what she said as she made so many body actions that made her looked like she was possessed or something. I then felt a chill down my back and saw that her brother was staring daggers at me. I gulped. Before I actually died to his constant barrage of daggers shooting out from his eyes, I need to change the conversation topic. The only idea I could think of was to get the girl to do what she wanted to before she was interrupted and hope that I could survive being in the same room as the brother.

“Anyway, thank you so much for your hospitality. Maybe you should go back to what you were going to do?”

“Oh right! Cooking dinner! Yeah, I’ll be on my way. Bye brother and the guy who could hear me!”

She ‘said’ as she exited the room, closing the door to my sole escape route. The windows was not a viable choice as we are not on the ground floor. I was still weak either way, so I would not be able to prevent my death if the brother really decided to murder me even when I have an escape route. The room turned silent as there was no more conversation and the man’s staring intensity rises. It got to the point where an average person might have peed his pants. He suddenly approached the chair that the girl sat on before and sat on it, turning the chair to face me.

“So who are you?”

His tone had changed to one that contained warmth and concern. The sudden change in attitude caught me by surprise. I suppose the storm like behavioural change runs in the blood. I could only stare at him for a moment before I replied, close to a mumble.

“I-I don’t remember. Who was I and what I was doing.”

It was soft enough to miss if one wasn’t paying attention but he caught it. He became silent as he thought things through for a moment.

“Hmm. Maybe telling you where you were before you collapsed might give you a hint to who you were?”

He asked himself out loud before continuing.

“You collapsed in a dark alley near the centre of the city. There was some kind of disturbance slightly before we found you there, it had something to do with some red smoke? Maybe you were one of the few to actually be affected by it. Yeah, probably.”

I could only remained confused to what he said. What could the red cloud be and could it actually have something to do with me? That I don’t know, nor do I know who I was.

The stormy man changed once more as he suddenly declared.

“Right! Doesn’t matter who you were and what you did to get yourself collapsed there. As long as you DON’T TOUCH OR HARM MY SISTER, then all is fine.”

I could only nod repeatedly before his stares pierce a hole through me. His sister soon returned with the dinner and helped me to sit up on the bed. It was done with her brother’s assistances and I was soon fed by her. It was painful to eat the dinner which seemed to be some sort of porridge as the daggers continued shooting out from the brother’s eye. The jealousy is strong with this one, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call him a siscon.

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A few days went by as I remained on bed, being taken care of by the siblings. I regained my strength slowly and was able to walk slowly without help by the end of the second day. I didn’t leave the house that was two stories high and only walked out of my room whenever there was a need, for the toilet or for food during meals downstairs. There was only the two of them in the house and I never did saw anyone else entered. They do went out once in a while to get grocery but I was never left alone in the house. I believed that my relationship with the siblings had became quite good by the third day, other than the fact that the brother seemed like he would kill me whenever I interacts with his sister.

The brother’s name was Raoul Rivera and the sister Slyvie Rivera. They were quite wealthy previously but after having lost their parents, they started living here. Not like they were no longer rich, they just had to make full use of the money inherited by their parents to continue living. Slyvie didn’t have a job while Raoul wasn’t willing to leave his sister alone at home to go to work. Raoul was also the one who single handedly carried me back to their house after Slyvie found me in the alley collapsed during her grocery buying. He seemed to be some kind of martial artist from what I saw of his practice in their mini-garden behind the house. I wondered how long it would take for me to fully recover and pay back for their kindness. how long will this situation last? It didn’t last long.

On the fifth day since they found me, I went up to my room after helping with dishwashing from dinner. As I opened the door to my room, I could hear people knocking on the front door to the house. Wondering who it was, but not wanting to disturb the possible guest for the siblings, I stayed in my room. I listened intently for what went on downstairs and could only made out some words.

“Your father… money… pay… sister…”

“What! Sister… No way…”

Finding the situation weird, I took a peek through the open windows. I could barely see the front door from there. Standing over there was a couple of shady looking men. Raoul was surrounded by all sides by the men except the back, which stood Sylvie by the door. They then each took out a knife and started attacking Raoul. Raoul fought against four knife wielding men barefist but was still able to match them, dodging their slashes and even hitting some of the wrist to disarm them. I watched in wonder as they fought. There was another man which I assume to be their leader watching by the side. I saw his eyes moved to Sylvie instead of Raoul and noticed that a man had sneaked in from the side to get her.

“Stop your resistance! We got your sister, now hand it over or she dies!”

Noticing that Sylvie was taken hostage, Raoul could only stop fighting, only to be met with multiple slashes him from all sides. They were not deep wounds, but were meant to punish him for resisting in the first place. Some of the cuts were still deep enough to leave scars after they healed.

“Let her go!”

“We’ll do it as long as you hand the thing over to us. Or would you rather us have fun with her in front of you?”

“You bastards! Unhand her now!”

As I watched the scene unfold below, I knew that I wanted to help them, but didn’t know how. I suddenly felt a surge of confidence that I could change the situation as my memories resurfaced. With what I was and the powers that I had, it wasn’t so hard.

I spread the terror that caused panic a few days earlier in the city. It was late in the evening and was dark, making it hard for the thugs to notice the blood spores before it entered their bodies. They were shocked at the sudden appearance of the red mist that befalls them and wondered who had interfered with their coercing. Their eyes finally landed on me once I spoke.

“Hey Raoul, can I kill them?”

They radiated hostility towards me and the siblings became confused.

“What? Do you even know how to fight? And they got Slyvie, they will harm her if we do anything!”

“Answer me. Yes, or no?”

“If possible, don’t kill them.”

“Okay.”

The thugs didn’t wait patiently during our conversation. They were preparing themselves for what I was going to do. The leader had even took out prepared to throw hidden darts.

I stepped back into the shadow of the room and momentarily, the thugs wonder if I had ran away and the conversation before was just a buff. As their eyes were still focus on the window I popped out from, I used [Shadow Movement] to appear behind the man holding Sylvie hostage. Unluckily for him, he was standing away from the light coming from the internal of the house, making it easy for me to get to him. My reappearance was met by shocked eyes from each of the men, with the captor still unaware of my presences. All it took was a palm strike to the back of his head and he was knocked out. With Sylvie no longer under direct danger, Raoul could act.

He went on to fight the four opponents again, gaining more advantage over the four over time. Knowing that the leader of the group had darts that he could throw, I used [Shadow Movement] once more to appear behind him and pressed my dagger into his throat. He had saw my attack coming but wasn’t able to react in time and was thus checkmated.

“Now now, surrender yourself. Your boss is already captured and if you all want to die then please continue.”

One of them dropped his knife and surrendered while the other three ran away. That left us with the leader at knifepoint by me, a knocked out goon and one that surrendered.

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